Episode 43 - Leslie Moody Castro

Today’s guest is someone who quite literally lives between worlds—both geographically and creatively.

Leslie Moody Castro is an independent art curator and writer who splits her time between Austin, Texas, and Mexico City, a rhythm she’s kept for over twenty years. Her practice is deeply rooted in movement, collaboration, and conversation—whether across borders, between disciplines, or within communities.

For nearly two decades, Leslie has produced and curated projects across Mexico and the United States, always with an eye toward creating spaces for dialogue and exchange. She’s the co-founder of Unlisted Projects Residency and Co-Lab Projects, a unique, artist-run nonprofit in Austin dedicated to experimental and collaborative art. (Fun fact: Co-Lab is housed inside five massive concrete culverts)—those structures that usually carry water underground—gifted by a neighboring concrete factory. Leslie, and partner Sean Gaulager, along with their team transformed the concrete culverts into an imaginative and unconventional exhibition space on an acre of Texas land).

In 2022, she was both the inaugural curatorial fellow at New Mexico State University and curator-in-residence at Casa Otro in Mexico. Her work has earned two National Endowment for the Arts grants and a State Department fellowship for her research on borders.

Leslie’s global perspective is also shaped by residencies from Estonia to Tepoztlán, from Miami to Mexico City. She’s curated several major biennials, including the 2018 Texas Biennial, the 2021 Amarillo Museum Biennial, and most recently, the 2024 Aurora Biennial. From 2021 to 2024, she was also the guest editor of Glasstire, Texas’s leading online arts magazine.

She’s the founder of AtravesArte, a platform dedicated to transborder art practices—and she’ll be the first to tell you: Mariachi makes everything better.